


To Speak A Lesser Thing

by reysrose



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Canon Disabled Character, Canon who?, Chronic Pain, Clexa, Dream Sequences, Episode: s04e05 The Tinder Box, F/F, Flashbacks, Girl Gangs, Grief, Injury Recovery, Linctavia - Freeform, Luna is canon queer and you can't even try to change my mind, Mental Health Issues, Murder, No Lesbians Die, Polyamory, Polyamory Negotiations, Post-Episode: s04e05 The Tinder Box, Sea mechanic, The author doesn't know, aftermath of death, because we can't have nice things, fight to the death, repost, the bunker, what's a straight person
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-02
Updated: 2018-10-28
Packaged: 2019-06-01 11:39:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 13,433
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15142271
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reysrose/pseuds/reysrose
Summary: Octavia heals. Luna and Raven recognize their feelings. Clarke and Niylah realize why they never feel complete.Life gets better.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dreamsheartstory](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dreamsheartstory/gifts).



> Still I bring flowers
> 
> Although you fling them at my feet
> 
> Until none stays
> 
> That is not struck across with wounds:
> 
> Flowers and flowers
> 
> That you may break them utterly
> 
> As you have always done.
> 
> Sure happily
> 
> I still bring flowers, flowers,
> 
> Knowing how all
> 
> Are crumpled in your praise
> 
> And may not live
> 
> To speak a lesser thing.
> 
> ~ Ad Infinitum, William Carlos Williams

Octavia is still clinging to Clarke’s hand with a desperation she doesn’t understand when the mob comes for Illian and drags him towards the burning Ark. She doesn’t see where they take him, or if they kill him, but she doesn’t care. She’s so tired. The muscles in her neck relax and her head flops back over Bellamy’s forearm, her fingers slipping through Clarke’s and out from where she’s lodged them under Bellamy’s jacket collar. Pain hits her over and over, waves of the stuff like the sea out near Luna’s rig. She bites her lip until she tastes blood.

“O?”

“M’fine.”

She’s not. She feels like she got trampled. Bellamy cups the back of her neck, bringing her head up to rest on his shoulder, and Clarke crouches in front of her, the light of the fire making her glow around the edges. Maybe it’s just the trauma. Or the blood loss. Octavia isn’t sure.

“How many fingers.”

“Three.”

“Well, if she has a concussion, it’s a minor one.”

Octavia digs her teeth into her tongue in an effort to stop from screaming as Bellamy shifts her body so Clarke can probe at things. Something in her lower half grinds together, pain shoots up her spine, and she bites down harder. Bellamy forces her jaw open. She moans, back arching. Clarke is unwrapping her bandages. It fucking hurts, it hurts it hurts it hurts. Her brother cradles her a little tighter, his cheek resting on her hair.

“Stop, O. Be still.”

Octavia doesn’t quite pass out in her brother’s arms, but she drifts. It hurts too much, all over, for her to really sleep so she doesn’t, just lays there, limp, against his chest. There’s a hand in her hair sometimes, a low, smooth voice in her ear.

“She’s bleeding again. The blast tore most of her stitches.”

It also made her lungs feel like someone filled them with dirt and rocks. She wishes she were coherent enough to tell Clarke that, but she can’t, because whenever she opens her mouth all that comes out is wheezy, choking coughs.

“Her fingers-”

“I know-”

Octavia moans, trying to form words. She wants to tell them that she’s cold, that it hurts, that she can’t breathe without shooting pains in her chest. Her brother murmurs in her ear.

“You’re alright, O. When the fire goes out we’ll get you fixed up.”

Niylah and the sight of her on her back in the flames clings to the front of Octavia’s brain. She thinks she cries for her at one point, begs her to be alright. She’s not sure. It hurts.

“Here, get the oxygen mask on her before we move her, Bellamy, she’s blue.”

And then she’s being lifted and it isn’t her brother, Octavia cracks open an eye just to check, it’s Kane cradling her. The sun, it must be midday, hurts her head.

“You…”

“Save your strength.”

Her voice sounds strange and weak in her own head. She needs to apologize to him. She was reckless. Her recklessness got her killed-wait, no, she’s still alive. Almost killed. It hurts. Indra. Indra was threatened. Is she still alive? She doesn’t know. Someone, Clarke maybe? Whoever it is is blonde and thin and too tall to be Clarke, Niylah, Niylah is fine, alive- her head hurts. She stops thinking. It doesn’t help.

“Hurts.”

“I know, Octavia. I’m starting an IV right now.”

Something tight around her bicep. A pinch. She whines. Her brother’s hand strokes her cheek.

“I’m going to give her something to sleep. I need to redo those stitches and she needs rest and I know she’s been awake the whole night.”

“Clarke, do you think that’s wise?”

That’s Indra. Octavia reaches blindly. A hand, smooth, small, calloused, wraps around her wrist and guides it back onto the mattress.

“Yes.”

“Okteivia. Relax.”

It hurts too much. There’s something cold flooding her veins and she can taste saline and the acrid tang of pain medication. It still hurts, and she’s still cold, but she’s suddenly too exhausted to care. Someone crawls onto the cot with her, lifting her into a lap. She’s not sure who it is, she’s too fuzzy. Her head hurts. She lets it fall onto a slim shoulder, sick, tired, in pain. Exhausted. The black behind her eyes swims. Somewhere around her, Indra is singing a lullaby. She’s never heard Indra sing before. Octavia feels her tired heart beat a little harder and she sinks into the warmth behind her as hands begin to tug at her shirt and spread stinging venom over her stab wound.

Octavia falls asleep.

~

She wakes up because she’s thirsty. She’s not in her bed, not in Polis, she’s somewhere else that her brain is less familiar with but that makes her groan all the same. Medbay. She can’t move her torso or either leg from the hip, and there’s quite the cluster of tubes in her body. Two in her arm. She can feel something in her chest and something snaking down her leg and fuck, she does not want to know.

She remembers what happened, it’s not that she doesn’t, she just doesn’t really feel like knowing what the damage is. She’s tired. She’s numb. She does not care what is currently wrong with her. She wants water, and she wants to go back to sleep until the world ends.

Knowing Clarke Griffin, she’s only going to get one of those things.

“Clarke.”

Her voice sounds like shit. She coughs.

“Clarke.”

Clarke doesn’t appear, but Niylah does, carrying a cup and a syringe with what Octavia dearly hopes is pain medicine.

“How are you feeling?”

Octavia shifts, whines at the pain, and rolls her head across the pillow. Niylah sets the cup down and goes to stick the needle into the tube in Octavia’s hand. It’s definitely pain medicine. The floating feeling hits her right away.

“Thirsty.”

Niylah presses a spoon to her lips. Ice chips. Octavia rolls her eyes at the excessive caution that comes with giving someone ice chips but takes them off the spoon anyways, sighing at the feeling of moisture in her mouth.

“You’re in pretty bad shape.”

“And you?”

Niylah startles, frowning and settling in the chair by Octavia’s bed. She looks exhausted, bags under her eyes, soot still clinging to her hair. She’d changed her clothes. Octavia notes sleepily that Niylah looks really good in blue.

“What do you mean?”

She’s clinging to consciousness as the medication draws her under, desperate to get an answer. Niylah got hurt because of her. Illian hurt her because of Octavia.

“You got, um, you know..”

“I’m fine. A little bruised, some smoke inhalation, but I’ll recover.”

Her eyes are half lidded. Niylah is surrounded by haze.

“I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

Octavia can feel her words slurring together and she is annoyed.

“Illian…”

A cloth dabs at her face. Niylah laughs, a light sound, like the windchimes Raven made.

~

 

“You broke your pelvis. They had to cut you open to fix it, and there are screws in there. Holding you together. Along with stitches which are also holding you together.”

“Is that why I can’t move at the hips?”

Niylah fixes her with a look, daring her to say she’s been trying to move from the hips or even her lower back which, conveniently, has hairline fractures in it. Turns out falling off a cliff does a lot of damage, and the blast from Illian’s fireball had turned fractures in her pelvis that they’d missed into full on breaks. Octavia hates it. When she’s awake, which is becoming more and more frequent, she can’t move almost at all. Can’t go to the bathroom, can’t spar, can barely even move her arms off the mattress because if she does, it tugs her stitches and aggravates her injured back.

“Yes and if you know what’s good for you you won’t try, got it?”

Octavia rolls her eyes. Indra, sitting in a chair to her left, slaps the back of her head where it protrudes from her stack of pillows.

“Listen. You want to almost kill yourself a third time this week because you didn’t listen?”

She’s irritable. Bellamy is what calms her down, surprisingly. He sits by her bed when she’s being prickly, getting anxious, and he reads to her, or has her read out loud. It’s an old trick from back on the Ark and the part of Octavia that wants to leave the scared little girl behind hates that it still works, but the part of her that is injured and in pain clings to the comfort.

The mob that dragged him towards the fire must not kill Illian, because he’s there whenever she wakes up, zip tied to the bars of his cot and looking like he got the shit kicked out of him, which he did. He tries to talk to her, sometimes. She ignores him. She has nothing to say to him. She feels a strange, aching jealousy in her chest when he smiles at Niylah after she brings him food or water, or changes his bandages. She doesn’t shove it down but lets it fester. She wants to hate Illian, she really does, but she’s too- she doesn’t really know what she is, if Octavia is honest with herself, which she tries really hard not to be.

Word spreads that she’s doing better within hours of her first bout of consciousness, and her corner of medbay fills with visitors before she’s ready for anyone. She hasn’t seen her friends since before the City of Light fell, but she doesn’t want them to see her, not like this, not weak and bruised and barely able to sit up. She doesn’t seem to have much choice in the matter, because the next time she wakes up they’re all tumbling into medbay one after the other, crowding around her bed. It makes her itchy, claustrophobic. She hates it. She wants to send them away, wants Niylah to act on her clear irritation at the crowd in medbay, but there’s a guilt in her chest that doesn’t let her. Octavia hasn’t been around, hasn’t even been in contact, since a lot of really horrible shit happened. And they all seem so excited and relieved to see her breathing and in mostly one piece. She doesn’t have the heart to kick them out. She wishes she did though.

Jasper makes her uncomfortable. She feels guilty about it but the emptiness in his eyes, despite his constant off color jokes, rivals her own and Octavia can’t deal with it. She can’t. It’s terrifying and it makes her feel sick inside, dirty. It’s also seductive. Octavia wants to know what she can do to give up like that, deep in the pit of her belly. She doesn’t ask. Just smiles at him weakly and reaches out to squeeze his hand. When they all leave, Harper pressing a kiss to her cheek, Octavia tries to sleep away her desire to feel what Jasper is feeling. It doesn’t work.

In the days and hours following the visit, she thinks about it almost constantly, Jasper’s complete lack of concern for the end of the world and his own life, and the more she thinks about it the more it infects her, sliding under her skin and strangling her. Niylah is the only spot of sun. Clarke is gone, and her brother is in and out of medbay less and less as Praimfaya grows ever closer. Indra has returned to Polis. Octavia swallows, feels loneliness as clearly as she feels the pull of her stitches when Niylah has her manipulate the muscles in her arms and stomach.

Niylah’s changing her bandages when Octavia reaches for her wrist, gripping it between fingers that are still frustratingly weak. Niylah looks up at her, the slant of her nose catching the gray light from outside. Octavia keeps holding on.

“You alright?”

She nods, jerkily. She can play her reaction off on the pain. The bandage over her stab wound had been stuck to the stitches in places. It tugged something awful as Niylah had peeled it away. Niylah laces their fingers, the gauze forgotten on the sheets of the cot.

“You’re not alright. Talk to me, Okteivia.”

She shakes her head, tracing jagged patterns on her thigh. Her brother had found a pair of soft sleep pants for her, and a worn shirt, and helped her wash the blood and dirt and sweat off of herself before heading out on a scouting mission. She wishes he had stayed. She’s swimming in a sea of terror and guilt and self hatred and she’s barely keeping her head above water and Bellamy is an excellent life raft. She feels bare without her layers of leather, her sword, her tight ponytail. For the first time since Lincoln died, Octavia is truly exposed. Niylah taps between her furrowed eyebrows, smoothing the wrinkles with her thumb and a soft, gentle smile.

“Tell me what’s happening in that head, hmm?”

“Do you-” she swallows. Her mouth is dry. She doesn’t know why she’s asking this, but she needs to know. She has to. Her chest is tight, her breathing shallow, “do you think people can change?”

“Yes, of course. People change all the time.”

Silent tears make tracks on her cheeks. Niylah finishes bandaging her middle back up and changing the gauze pads that cover the stitches near her hips and the swell of her back. Octavia feels like the patchwork doll she had as a child. Disjointed, cobbled together. Almost ephemeral. She doesn’t believe Niylah. She can’t change. She can’t. She’s stuck. She doesn’t feel real. She doesn’t realize that she’s hyperventilating until Niylah leaves her to come back with a needle seconds later. A hand cups her face, stroking away sweat sticky hair. She wants to braid it, but it hurts to hold her arms up like that for more than a few seconds and she’s too proud to ask anyone else.

“Can I give you something? It’ll help you sleep.”

She nods. Niylah tugs at the waistband of her sweatpants and there’s a prick in the soft skin of her bruised thigh. She whimpers.

Niylah holds her hand until the drug takes her.

~

She’s doing her PT exercises when the men come for Illian a second time, likely to finish what they started the first time. Octavia looks anywhere but at him as he’s marched out of medbay, because he almost killed her with that stupid fucking stunt and definitely doomed the entire human race, and she understands the anger and the need for revenge the mob has. It doesn’t mean she helps them. She doesn’t stop them from dragging him out, either, but she doesn’t help them with it. She doesn’t need even more blood on her hands. She huddles back onto her cot, hides her face in the blankets, and pretends she’s asleep. A voice in the back of her skull that sounds distinctly like Kane whispers to her that by not helping, she’s compliant. She’s compliant, and Illian’s blood is still on her hands even if she doesn’t help pull the damn trigger. Octavia bites her lip until it bleeds to shut the voice up.

When the gunshot rings out, she flinches, buries her head farther into the covers, and tries not to think about the last time shots rang out against the metal walls of this fucking tomb they’re living in.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The black rain comes. Octavia makes a grave mistake. Luna, Clarke, and Raven return from Becca's lab.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning for suicide/self harm. If you want to skip it, I will summarize in the end notes. The attempt begins at "She waits until it's dark" and ends at "She sleeps heavily" This is rock bottom for Octavia.

The black rain comes. She’s sleeping, curled in a pile of blankets and a sweater, the pain too strong that morning for her to fight through without a heavy dose of morphine. She’d only accepted it after the pain in her pelvis and back reached a level that had her retching and dizzy. Niylah wakes her, wild eyed, desperate. She sits her up, tugging a jacket on over Octavia’s layers. Octavia protests with a low sound in the back of her throat and flops back down onto the cot. 

“You have to get up, Okteivia.”

She shoves her face into the pillow, the medication making her head and stomach spin. She feels awful. She’s been hurt before, and she knows that healing takes time and some days suck worse than others, but there’s got to be a new element to this. She whimpers. Niylah sits her back up again, tugging her forward so she’s leaning against her chest. The blankets are gone. She wants them back. 

“I have them. Shush.”

“Cold.”

“I know. Here.” 

A blanket appears in her weak, grasping hands. She clings to it. 

“Come on. That’s it.” 

Niylah is scooping her up, setting her socked feet on the floor. 

“M’boots.”

“I have them. Lean on me.” 

Her head lolls, back and forth and into Niylah’s neck and shoulder and cheek. It’s slow going and Niylah is tense, her muscles corded where she clutches Octavia to her side. She feels sick. 

“Bellamy. Bellamy!” 

“I’ve got her. Niylah, we need your help and probably medical supplies. There’s- well, there’s casualties.” 

Her brother makes a little nest of blankets in the corner of the main room in the Ark. She can hear thunder and it makes her jump, twitching as Bellamy eases her down. 

“Is it-” She fights for a clear head, fog heavy and thick over her brain “black rain?”

“Yeah.”

She forces his face into focus, cupping it with her hand. The IV cannula is still in the back of it and there’s a splatter of blood under the clear bandage covering the entry site. She stares at it, open mouthed and distracted for a second, then blinks up at Bellamy again. 

“You ok?”

“I’m fine. But I have to go, O, alright? There’s people out there trapped and I have to get them.”

“No. No, Bell, please no.” 

She feels staticy, chest tight, breath shallow. If he leaves, he won’t come back. If he leaves her, Octavia will never see him again. She’s sure of it. 

“I’m sorry, O. You’ll be safe here, and I will be back as soon as I can.” 

“Let me go with you, let me come, please, Bellamy, please-”

Niylah is there, crowding her, hands pinning her to the floor as her brother kisses her on the forehead and leaves, walking out through the crowded room and towards his death. Octavia screams and fights, howling and sobbing. Her grief mixes with the sounds of the injured and dying, and she can’t help but think how appropriate it is. Those affected by the black rain badly enough are screaming and begging for death, and it echoes around the hall. Octavia’s wailing sobs for her big brother join in, creating a macabre symphony backed by the rolling thunder outside. 

She realizes, just as her screams begin to weaken and exhaustion falls over her, making her slump against Niylah’s strong hands, that she wants to die too. 

She waits until it’s dark. The guy with the worst injuries has succumbed to them, and the hall is quiet except for the sounds of snoring and the occasional burst of a nightmare. Octavia stares at the ceiling to prepare for the pain that walking will cause. She needs to get to medbay. She can use what they have there more effectively than her sword.

Plus, if she’s in a part of the Ark where nobody is, nobody will stop her.

Her legs and hips are too weak to hold her weight, so Octavia crawls. She drags herself through masses of people, down the halls, and into medbay, where she manages to stand up and use the wall and the cots to brace herself as she staggers towards the supply cabinet. Pills don’t sound appealing. Neither does hanging. Octavia Blake is a warrior, and she’s going to go out like one, blood spilt, death earned through pain. Her back throbs as she stumbles, tugging open a drawer and pulling out a wicked looking scalpel. 

She swallows. Her chest burns with anticipation and a little bit of fear, but she’s here now. She’s committed. She thinks back to Jasper and his haunted, empty eyes and how they mirror her own. The world is ending. They’re all going to die anyways. Her brother probably already has, out there in the acid rain. 

Octavia puts the knife to her wrist, and she cuts. 

She goes downwards, remembering the scars on Raven’s wrists. The blood is thick and hot and it comes in spurts, fast enough that she’s dizzy within seconds. Her heart beats like a startled rabbit. Her hips go weak, her knees buckle, and she’s on the floor. 

It doesn’t even hurt. She watches the blood pulse out over the floor, soaking into her clothes. The scalpel falls from her bloody fingers. She closes her eyes. She’s at peace with her decision. She’ll get to see Lincoln again. She hopes Niylah will burn her body like Trikru does, wonders if anyone will tell Indra. 

“OCTAVIA.”

It’s Niylah, hand over her mouth in terror. Octavia smiles up at her dizzily, uncaring, blood seeping into her hair. 

“Oh no, oh god, Octavia oh what have you done?”

There’s pressure on her wrist and she thrashes, exhausted, so tired, please, she just wants to die, wants to GO, but Niylah won’t let her. 

“KANE! KANE QUICK!”

Niylah strokes her cheek with one hand and maintains pressure with the other, Octavia half in her lap. Niylah is sobbing, begging her to stay awake.

“Please, sweetheart, oh god, please. Stay awake.” 

Kane is there, scooping her up, laying her on a cot, running around as Niylah shouts orders. There’s something injected into her IV cannula. She’s too weak to fight, too empty. She doesn’t think they’ll be able to save her. The cloth around her wrist is dripping blood already. 

As Niylah begins to clean the wound, Octavia blacks out. 

She sleeps heavily, drifting in and out through pain and peace like clear water. Her brother is there when she wakes up sometimes, to stroke her hair back and coax ice chips down her raw throat. He looks tired, afraid, old. Bellamy looks older than 24 when he looks down at her, in a hospital bed, wrapped in blankets. She can’t quite remember exactly, but she knows she did something bad, something wrong. It makes her queasy to think about so she doesn’t, just goes back to sleep when it starts to creep up on her. 

When her brother isn’t there, Niylah is. She looks at Octavia like she’s made of shards of glass, fragile but dangerous. Niylah talks to her, works her through her physical therapy when she’s conscious enough to at least squeeze and flex when she’s told. She can’t move her left arm. It’s a minor annoyance instead of a complete and total nightmare. Niylah is warm and comforting, pressed to her side. She holds her, half in her lap, and reads to her quietly. Octavia feels safe, if a little broken. Niylah is safe. 

She knows in the back of her head that she’s being sedated, that this warm, fuzzy sleep isn’t natural. She watches with heavy eyes as Niylah injects something into her IV before hooking her up to more fluids.

“Whazzat?”

“Hmm?”

She points, wordlessly, to the empty syringe in Niylah’s hand. Niylah smiles, sets it down to be discarded, and climbs in the bed with Octavia. A spoon meets her lips. Applesauce. 

“Needle.”

“It’s something to keep you calm until you’re well. You hurt yourself pretty badly.”

No shit, Octavia wants to say, she fell off a cliff into a river and then got blown up. But the back part of her brain that knows she did something wrong whispers in her ear that Niylah is talking about the nobadwrong thing she did. Octavia chews her lip in between bites of applesauce. The blood mixes with the metallic tang of pureed fruit. She remembers there being lots of blood. 

“Niylah.”

“Yes?”

“I tried to kill myself.” 

Niylah’s hand comes to rest on her sternum, just over her heart, as if she’s reminding herself that Octavia didn’t succeed. Octavia just feels hollow. She tried. She failed. There’s nothing more to say about it. 

“Yes. I found you.”

“You saved me.”

“Yes.”

Octavia buries her head in the crook of Niylah’s neck, inhaling against her skin. Niylah always smells like the forest, even here, under the acrid scent of blood and isopropyl alcohol. The drug is taking her under again. 

“Thank you.” 

The next time Octavia wakes up, there are voices near her, talking quietly. Voices she recognizes, but voices that aren’t Niylah, her brother, or Kane. Her eyes are sticky with sleep and it takes her a few tries to blink, bringing the world into some sort of focus. 

“There she is. Welcome back, Pocahontas.”

Raven Reyes is grinning down at her like the Cheshire Cat, her hand squeezing Octavia’s shoulder. 

“When did-” she coughs, clearing her dry throat. Niylah (thank God Niylah is still here, Octavia’s heart pounds out. She ignores it) puts a straw in her mouth. 

“Drink. Slowly.”

“When did you come back?”

“While you were getting your beauty sleep, apparently. No offense, little Blake, but you don’t look so hot.”

“I got thrown off a cliff and stabbed, what’s your excuse?”

She opens her mouth for the straw again, grinning around the plastic at Raven. 

“She refuses to sleep, that’s what.” 

She knows that voice. Her head whips to the side. 

“Luna?”

A soft, warm palm cups her cheek. Octavia smells salt and oil and sweat. She looks up, meeting Luna’s deep eyes. They glimmer like still pools of water and Octavia wants to sleep, suddenly. She fights it. 

“Hello, Okteivia.” 

She struggles to sit up, whimpering when her stab wound and her back both pulse with blistering pain. Raven scrambles to lift the head of the bed for her, and Niylah braces her until she can flop down against the pillows with a huff of breath and a grimace. There are still fluids being pumped into her. Her head feels light. 

“It’s good to see you. Both of you.” 

“I’m just glad you’re not dead. You’re more fun to harass than your brother.” 

Octavia rolls her eyes, legs twitching. She wants to pull them up and cross them, press her feet together. She hates the position the brace for her pelvis forces her into. Niylah gives her a look. 

“Come on, Niylah. Please?”

“Absolutely not. You pulled stitches out with your little stunt, crawling all the way here from the hall, and you’ve extended your healing time. I can’t-” 

Niylah stands up, so fast the chair topples over, and then walks rapidly from the room. Octavia tries to fight the tears that are building in her throat, but a choked, whimpering animal sound escapes and then her cheeks are wet. 

“Reivon, why don’t you go see to Niylah? I’m sure she could use some support. Okteivia and I will stay here and calm down.” 

She can’t. Not without Niylah, not with Niylah so angry at her. Her chest hitches. She reaches for her bandaged wrist, pressing her fingers into the would frantically, needing some sort of sensation to distract her from the emotional tidal wave she’s been caught in. 

“No, no. Hey.”

Lunah holds her hands gently with one hand and turns Octavia’s face towards her with the other, holding her by the chin. 

“Please, let go, please-”  
“Niylah told us what happened. I’m so sorry, Okteivia.” 

“No, please, let me go, Luna please I’m begging you please-”

And then Luna is on the bed with her, wrapping her arms around her and tugging so they’re back to chest. Octavia screeches and fights, desperate to feel something, anything, to feel the pain she caused Niylah when she- when she-

“Shhh, Okteivia. I need you to breathe, sweet one. Can you repeat after me?”

She fights, but she’s so weak from inactivity and blood loss and sedatives and Luna has her in a tight hold. She wails, throwing her head back, trying to hit it against Luna’s shoulder or face, but it just lands on her shoulder.

“Repeat after me, Okteivia. Shhhh. Ai giv ai op- say it, love.”

“A-Ai g-g-g-iv ai o-o-o-p”

“Gon nemiyon-”

“G-Gon Ne- please, Luna, please-”

“Gon nemiyon… come on, Okteivia. I know you can do it.”

“Go-Gon Nemi-y-yon”

“Kom Lanik-De. Last part, alright? You can do it.”

“K-Kom Lanik-D-De-”

Luna repeats it, over and over, cooing to her as she sobs and thrashes. When the fight finally leaves her, bleeding her dry and leaving her hollow, empty, soaked in salt, Luna helps her drink and lays her down, sitting in the chair by her bedside. It’s getting dark out. A storm, or a sunset, Octavia can’t tell. Luna begins to brush her hands through Octavia’s hair.

“Tomorrow, we’ll braid it, hmm? It’s a snarled mess, down like this. We can wash it, and I’ll do it for you however you like. Keep the tangles out while you’re stuck in this bed. And we can talk. All of us. Clarke is anxious to see you awake.”

“I-I-”

“Shhh. There will be time for that tomorrow.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Octavia decides to kill herself while everyone sleeps. She sneaks into medbay and uses a scalpel to slit her wrist, making note of Raven's attempt in 3x10 and the scars she has. Niylah finds her bleeding out, shouts for Kane, and as they begin to stitch up the cut, Octavia loses consciousness.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The bunker

Octavia looks, well, awful. 

She’s sleeping, cocooned in piles of blankets and half in Raven’s lap. Raven is reading something, bad leg stretched out along the cot, holding the book in one hand and stroking Octavia’s hair with the other. It’s in twin braids down the back of her head, neat and out of the way. Octavia’s skin is greyish pale and waxy, dark circles under her eyes. She’s still on a fluid drip. She shouldn’t still be in that bad of shape. 

That’s when Clarke notices the heavy white wrap around her left wrist, and remembers what Bellamy told her. 

“Raven.”

Raven’s head jerks up, and her hand stills on Octavia’s head. She holds a finger to her lips, beckoning Clarke closer. 

“Quiet. We just got her down.”

“She’s not an infant, Raven.”

“She’s about as functional as one right now.”

Clarke sits in the chair by the bed, reaching out and playing with Octavia’s limp fingers. Octavia doesn’t stir, her head still pressed up against the soft, flat plane of Raven’s belly. 

“Bellamy told me about…” Clarke gestures towards the heavy bandaging around Octavia’s wrist. Raven grimaces, her eyes darting down towards her own wrists and the thick scarring lining them both. The hand in Octavia’s hair migrates towards Octavia’s cheek and Raven thumbs the girl’s cheekbone. Octavia whimpers, fretting and then going still. 

“Yeah. Niylah’s shaken up about it, still. Octavia is, well, Octavia. And besides, she’s mostly out of it. When she is awake she’s fine until she’s suddenly not, so we’re trying to keep her sleeping as much as possible. She keeps going for her stitches to ground herself.”

“Fuck.” 

“Yeah.” 

“I take it you heard about the bunker.”

“Yes. Only because I’m on the list.”

“Good. And the summit?”

“Unfortunately. How are we gonna pull that off, Clarke? Leaving 400 people behind?”

“There’s...a plan.” 

She doesn’t want to talk about it. Clarke cups Octavia’s cheek, grimacing at the sheen of sweat coating it. 

“So, tell me more about what’s happening between you and Luna.”

They leave in the middle of the night, the chosen 100. No rovers, no lights. A silent escape into the forest. Clarke, Niylah, Luna, and Raven huddle in the middle of the clump, Luna and Niylah on either side of Octavia’s stretcher. She’s awake, dazed, eyes glassy with pain already. It’s only been an hour, but every jolt and bump send Octavia’s mouth tight at the edges, her eyes scrunching up. Raven is having a difficult time as well, clinging to Clarke tightly, using her as a crutch. Clarke pats her pocket, making sure the bottle of morphine is still there. It is. 

“O, you doing ok?”

Octavia nods weakly, her neck cracking as her muscles tighten against a wave of pain. Bellamy, who’s been keeping guard on the fringes of their clump, finds them about 20 minutes after Clarke checks in on Octavia. Octavia is tearful, digging her fingernails into her bottom lip as she fights the urge to scream in pain every time they take a bad step. Raven is slowing as well, stumbling more often.

“How’s it going?”

“Please talk some sense into your sister so she’ll let me give her morphine before she bites a finger off.” 

Niylah stumbles over an exposed root and the stretcher jostles. Octavia howls like a wounded animal, long and low in the back of her throat, and her back arches.

“Whoa, whoa whoa whoa. Easy, Octavia-Ok, you’re getting morphine. Right the fuck now.”

“No, no, nononononono-”

Octavia sobs, shying away from the needle and then crying out when the motion jars her back. Clarke grabs Octavia’s right arm, sticks the needle in the IV cannula in the back of her hand, and pushes down in the plunger.

“Alright. Deep breaths. Shhh, shhhh.”

Octavia cries until she starts gagging, which aggravates her back and her stab wound. They can’t stop, so they just keep walking. Clarke takes over Niylah’s spot at the head of Octavia’s stretcher so Niylah can take Octavia’s hand and Raven’s weight. 

Octavia sleeps a heavy drugged sleep until they reach Polis, and wakes up still and pale and quiet, slumped on the stretcher and down against Niylah’s shoulder. Clarke is in and out of meetings all day, with Luna and Kane and other delegates from each clan, but every time she gets a break, she checks in on them. Raven is there sometimes, talking to Bellamy others. Octavia never moves, just naps off and on in the same position. 

They sleep in piles in the tower, that night. Raven and Luna come and sit with them, Octavia’s head in Niylah’s lap as she sleeps. 

“We can’t leave her alone.”

It’s Raven that says it, looking down at Octavia’s sleeping face. There are circles under her eyes that are deep and shadowed. 

“This is going to be a living hell for her. The floor, remember? Clarke, she’s already done this.”

“Fuck.”

They lay out a schedule, hopefully one just until Octavia is

In the morning they file in. 

She sees Octavia briefly, clinging to her brother, a grimace twisting her face as Bellamy carries her down the stairs as gently as possible. She sees Niylah in passing, when she drops her pack in the room they silently agreed to share when Clarke had curled up against her back overnight. 

“Clarke.”

She didn’t realize she was drifting in the common area of the delegate chambers until Raven is there, shaking her awake. Her ponytail is falling down, and she looks exhausted. Her limp is more pronounced than it has been, and it could be from the exertion it took to get to Polis, but it could also be from her running here. A sharp jolt of panic runs through her, but she’s so tired and the couch in the meeting area is so cozy. 

“Clarke. Wake up.”

“Wha-what?”

“It’s Octavia.” 

“What about Octavia?”

She’s already up and moving, tugging her shoes back on and her hair into her ponytail.

“She’s in full panic mode. Screaming, crying, trying to tear at her stitches. Your mom is dealing with really bad radiation sickness, and Niylah can’t handle it.”

She sprints to medbay, cutting through the stream of people still trickling down the stairs and into the bunker. She can hear screaming and sobbing before she even skids in the door, panting.

Octavia is clinging to Niylah, her bloody fingernails digging into her wrists as she shakes in the cot. 

“Please, please, please please please please-”

“Octavia, I’m not going to do that.”

“I need it, Niylah!”

“What’s wrong?”

Octavia throws her head back and wails miserably, tugging at Niylah’s sleeve. Her fingernails are shredded, bitten to the quick, and Clarke can see a splotch of blood on the bandage on her wrist, soaking through the white gauze.

“Hey, heyheyhey, what’s going on?”

“I need-I need-”

“Octavia, deep breaths. Deep breaths.”

Octavia takes a shuddering gasp of air that turns into a choking, hitched sob. Clarke reaches down and cups her face, forcing her to focus. Octavia’s eyes are wild, frantic, and she lets go of Niylah only to clutch the front of Clarke’s shirt.

“Cuff-I want-You can’t let me out-you can’t-please-”

“Octavia, you can’t leave. It’s alright.”

“No, no, NO, Clarke. No, you have to restrain me.”

“Clarke, I’m going to get Luna-”

“Yes, Niylah, good idea-Octavia, do not do that.”

Octavia sobs and whimpers, letting Clarke pull her hand away from the bandages on her belly.

“I found Luna, and also Bellamy-”

“Luna, can you- Bellamy, follow me.”

Luna climbs onto the bed as Clarke grabs Bellamy by the hand and drags him into the hallway.

“I’m going to sedate her until the doors are closed.”

“Clarke, you can’t-”

“Shut up and listen. She’s screaming to be restrained. I am sedating her, before she hurts herself.” 

“You’re not doing her any favors keeping her sedated like this, Clarke! She’s not a flight risk, she’s just overreacting. She needs to take some deep breaths.”

From inside medbay, Octavia lets out a particularly piercing shriek of pleading. 

“Whatever you think, Bellamy, I’m giving her some Valium. She’s in pain. She’s terrified, she’s exhausted and sick, and I am not letting her suffer anymore.”

The medicine goes into the cannula and within minutes, Octavia has calmed down to soft tears and quiet whines. Clarke strokes her hair and cheek, running a finger down the line of her nose. 

“Please, Clarke. Please.”

“Please what, O?”

“The cuffs. Put them on-Clarke, I need them.”

“Ok. Alright. Take some deep breaths for me while I get them, please.”

There are padded restraints in the inventory closet, and Clarke fastens them around Octavia’s thin wrists and the bars of the bed, and sits with her until her breaths become less shaky and moderated and more even and natural. 

“How are you feeling, O?”

Octavia whimpers, pushing her cheek against Clarke’s open palm.

“Sleepy.”

“Yeah, you’ll probably feel pretty out of it for a while.”

Octavia licks her lips, eyelids fluttering. The restraints are still on her wrists, and Clarke goes to take them off, but Octavia flinches and makes a terrified sound deep in the back of her throat.

“What’s wrong?”

“Leave them.”

“Octavia…”

Octavia’s blown pupils stare up at her, dark and glassy. Her lower lip is trembling, and her skin is still clammy with the cold sweat she’d worked up before Clarke had gotten the meds into her. Clarke has seen Octavia feel a lot of things, has watched her get beaten and cut and burnt and bruised, has literally seen her internal organs. But she has never, ever, seen Octavia look this terrified to be in her own skin. 

“Clarke, please.” 

“Just until the meds kick in and you pass out, alright? You still have stitches in your left arm and I don’t want you to pull them out accidentally.”

Octavia goes white. Her head whips to the side, she stares intently at the restraint, and then she looks at Clarke.

“I swear, I wasn’t going to, no, I wasn’t-”

“Octavia! Calm down. Deep breaths. I just meant that if you moved in your sleep, and you still had the cuffs on, even these padded ones, you could potentially damage the stitches and then we’d have a problem. I was not insinuating that you were going to try to hurt yourself again. It’s alright.” 

Octavia nods. Her face scrunches up, her head rolling across the pillow. Clarke pulls up a chair and sits, remembering the rotation schedule they had set. She’s on “Pocahontas Duty”, as Raven had nicknamed it, until midnight. 

She does take Octavia out of the cuffs once her breathing is even and her eyes are closed. Octavia immediately curls in on herself, making a tiny ball in the center of the narrow bed and clenching the blankets in her arms. Clarke smiles, mentally saves the image. She wants to draw it, later, capture this moment of Octavia’s vulnerability and never lose it. 

Octavia wakes up when Luna comes to relieve her, and Clarke watches her begin to spiral when she can move both arms freely. She won’t look anywhere near the left wrist, just pushes her face into a blanket and begins to tremble. Clarke stays an hour extra, just to see if she settles unmedicated, but after an hour of shaking and sobbing and begging to be restrained again, Clarke gives Octavia more sedative. 

“Thank you,” Octavia mumbles, when she stops shaking, and her tears dry up. Clarke wipes at her cheeks with a tissue with a small smile. She ends up sleeping in the chair next to Luna’s anyways, Octavia’s cold hand wrapped in hers. 

She’s like that for two days. If Octavia isn’t sedated or restrained, she’s so anxious she becomes unresponsive or, a few times, makes herself sick. She won’t eat, doesn’t cry, doesn’t move unless she’s shifting in her sleep. They all have PTSD, but this isn’t 6 or so months of Earth related trauma they’re dealing with. It’s 16 years of virtual imprisonment, small spaces, silent days, claustrophobia, and constant terror. And being stuck in a tiny room with fluorescent lighting and mesh in the glass window in the door can’t be helping Octavia’s already fragile as glass mental state. 

Clarke manages to round up all of them and corrals them into Octavia’s room. Octavia is barely awake, a fresh dose of Valium keeping her calm. Niylah goes to her immediately, perching on the edge of the mattress and pressing their foreheads together as Octavia lets out a small cooing sound. Clarke lets a feeling of warmth and contentment wash over her before shoving it down. No time. Not right now. 

“We need to get her out of medbay. We can move a hospital cot into me and Niylah’s room, since it’s connected to Luna’s chambers through that common space meeting area thing. That way we’ll all be close by if something happens. I would put her in a regular bed but given the sheer amount of pain she’s been in every time we’ve taken her out of the hospital bed, I don’t think she needs to be sitting without support all the way up her spine yet. That way she’s safe, and we know where she is, but she’s not stuck here in what’s basically a jail cell.”

Octavia whimpers. Raven, sitting in the chair next to her bed, reaches out and squeezes Octavia’s hand, avoiding touching the cuffs.

“O?”

She lets out a tiny cry, her arm jerking at the restraint.

“Ok, Raven, take it off her, now, before she panics.”

Octavia sobs, once, and then her arms are free and she shoves herself into Niylah’s chest, still clinging to Raven’s hand. Luna sucks in a deep breath, turns to Clarke, and grips her forearm. 

“Give me five minutes. I’ll get a bed brought to your room.”


	4. Clean Hair

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Soft interludes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> come yell at me on Tumblr @reysxrose

All Octavia really remembers about the move from medbay to Clarke and Niylah’s room is that it hurts. She’s still foggy from the Valium, and a little sick to her stomach. The beds in medbay don’t have wheels, and she can’t sit up straight yet because of her back, so her brother carries her to the room. He’s warm, and without her pile of blankets she’s suddenly frozen. She knots a hand in the curls at the base of his scalp, tugging gently. She feels weak and small and sick and she hates it. Bellamy presses a kiss to her forehead.

“Bell…”

“I’m here.”

He’s been missing most of her stay in medbay, probably busy. In one of her moments of partial lucidity he told her that he was working on integrating the guard. 

“When you’re better, O, Indra and I want you to come help…”

She’d mumbled something, smiled, lopsided and tired, and fallen back under the haze of medication. 

She wakes up crying, terrified, fear choking her throat. She doesn’t recognize her surroundings at first and her immediate instinct is to run, but when she puts her feet on the floor her legs don’t support her weight, and she has to use the edge of the bed to stabilize herself. Right. She’s injured. She’s in the Second Dawn Bunker. She lowers herself to the cool concrete floor, not quite sure how to maneuver her useless lower half back into the bed. Her feet move, and her knees work, but her hips and pelvis are still immobilized. 

There’s a low couch across the room, and she thinks she could probably belly crawl to it. It would be more comfortable than the floor. Octavia wipes at her wet cheeks and messy face with her sleeves, tugs them over her fists, and starts to drag herself towards the sofa.

“Octavia!” 

“Hey, Reyes.”

“Did you fall out of the bed? O, are you hurt?”

Octavia flops back down, resting her cheek on the rug she’s made it to and rolling her eyes.

“I’m fine. I forgot where I was when I woke up and tried to make a break for it.”

“Alright, dumbass. Back to bed.”

Octavia groans, rubbing her cheek on the soft carpet beneath her. She’s getting really sick of being in that bed, even though she can’t really remember most of the time she’s spent in it. It’s a bone deep annoyance, one that her body feels even though her brain is a little behind the times. 

“O, come on.”

“I don’t want to.” 

Raven sighs and pinches the bridge of her nose. She has definitely been spending too much time with Bellamy, Octavia decides. She thunks her forehead against the floor with a groan of irritation.

“The bed is more comfy than the floor, and I really don’t want to be on the receiving end of Clarke’s rage when she comes in and you’re face down on the floor.”

“But I’m bored.” 

“Jesus Christ.” 

Octavia turns her head sideways and watches Raven carefully lower herself to sit on the rug next to her. Raven pats her thigh and Octavia curls onto her side and puts her head on the meat of it, sighing dramatically. Raven starts to stroke through her hair with deft fingers, mechanic’s fingers.

“I’m sorry you’re bored, O.” 

“Why? You didn’t almost kill me.”

“Because I know what it’s like to be stuck in bed, remember?”

Octavia nudges her nose against the seam of Raven’s jeans, reaching up to hold her hand. She feels so painfully touch starved, craving affection for the first time since Lincoln-she’s not thinking about it. She squeezes Raven’s fingers.

“It sucks. I’m so bored, and I can’t shut up my brain, but then if I do anything I want to scream because of how bad moving hurts. Moving hurts so much it’s insane. I didn’t even know things could hurt this much, honestly. I miss sparring, I miss leaving this fucking room, 

“I know, babe. It’s a lot to deal with when you’re used to running around.”

“How did you deal?”

“Oh, I mostly didn’t. Then I ate an AI and became a robot zombie. Coming back from that kind of forced me to deal with my problems, if I’m honest. I bet if we looked hard enough for leftovers we could chip you and then fry your brain, too, if you think it’ll help.”

Octavia laughs and then sniffles. Her eyes are wet with tears that she doesn’t remember shedding and there’s a tiny wet spot under her cheek. Raven tugs at the end of a braid.

“You have got to wash your hair, Pocahontas. It’s nasty.” 

“Do you think we can? I want a shower so badly but-”

“We definitely can. But we’re going to have to wait for someone to come get us off the floor.” 

“You’re stuck down here, aren’t you?”

“Watch it. So are you.” 

Octavia rubs her cheek against the grain of Raven’s jeans, suddenly exhausted again. Her entire lower body, from ribs to toes, is a dull throb of pain, and the pain feels like it’s sucking the life out of her. 

“You doing ok down there?”

“Tired. It hurts, and it’s making me tired.”

Raven’s hand is warm, rubbing up and down the length of Octavia’s thoracic spine. Any lower and the touch risks making Octavia scream. 

“It does that, being in pain all the time. It feel like someone stuck a needle in you and sucked out your entire personality yet?”

Octavia nods, heavy, her eyelashes fluttering. Distantly, from behind the sudden, bone weary exhaustion, Octavia realizes she’s shivering. 

“I’m gonna do my best to get up, and then get you up. You keep laying on this cold floor, you’ll get sick, and then Clarke will actually murder me.”

Her head is laid out on the carpet, and Octavia hums at the change in texture. Raven drags herself up using sheer force of will, if the agonized groan she lets out is any reflection, and then comes to stand over Octavia. 

“Alright, kid. I’m gonna need some serious help, and there’s no way I can get you back in that bed with rails, so Clarke’s bed it is. Sit up, O.”  
She does, slumping forward with the weight of her head and the pain in her spine. Raven hunches over awkwardly, her good knee bent for leverage, and loops her arms under Octavia’s.

“You’re gonna have to walk, Octavia. I can’t carry you.” 

She takes halting, shaky steps, clinging to Raven desperately. She can’t fall. If she falls, it’ll hurt, and not just her, because she’ll take Raven down with her and then Raven will get hurt. They make it to the edge of the mattress, and Raven gives her a boost to get up on it. Octavia flops over like a ragdoll, curling in on herself. Heavy blankets cover her. Raven presses a kiss to her forehead. 

“Nice teamwork. Go us.” 

“Raven?”

“Yeah?”

“Will you- uh, can you stay?”

“Yes but only if you let me under the covers too.” 

Raven slides under the blankets and comes to rest on her back, stretching an arm out across the mattress.

“Come here.” 

Octavia curls into Raven’s body, still shivering with cold. She’s not going to be able to stay awake much longer. She curls her toes in her socks. 

“You’re allowed to rest, Octavia.” 

“I know.”

“Then close your eyes. You look exhausted. I will be right here until you wake up.”

Raven does eventually get called away, but it’s nice to be held at least for a little while. Octavia naps off and on for the rest of the day, alternating between that and messing around on the datapad her brother brings her along with lunch. There are books on it, and infuriating games, and it’s a nice distraction from the fact that she’s trapped.

“Hey.” 

She startles awake, jerking up before a steady hand is easing her back down onto the bed. Her back throbs angrily at the sudden movement and she groans, throwing an arm over her eyes until she can see without blurriness. Clarke hovers over her, a box propped on her hip.

“I’m in your bed.”

“Correct.”

“Raven couldn’t get me back in mine. This one is more comfortable.”

She struggles to sit up, letting Clarke help lift her and prop her up with pillows. 

“That’s fine. You’ll be warmer in this one anyways, I saw you shivering in your sleep last night.”

“I can-you’ll let me stay?”

“Yeah, between me and Niylah you’ll be plenty warm.” 

Clarke’s voice sounds mildly strained. Octavia sinks back into the pillows. 

“What’s in the box?”

“Movies! We found some, and a player and a projector. We’re having movie night.”

“In here?”

“Yep.” 

Octavia wants to see a movie, she does. She’s never seen one, ever, and the idea is exciting. But she doesn’t want people around her. The thought of it makes her skin and her stitches itch. She folds her arms, tucking her hands into her armpits so she can’t pick at her incisions. 

“Who?”

“Me and you and Niylah, Raven and Luna, for sure. Maybe Bellamy, and Monty and Harper. I asked Murphy, but he and Emori have been, um, busy.”

Octavia snickers despite the anxiety building in her chest at the prospect of seeing that many people after days of partial isolation. Clarke is checking her vitals, warm hand around Octavia’s narrow wrist. 

“Sounds good.”  
“No pressure, O. If you don’t want to we can do it in Luna’s room so you can rest. Raven told me how exhausted you were.”

“No, no, I want to. Besides, I’ve been napping all day. ”

She grabs Clarke’s hand when it slides from her wrist and without thinking, presses a kiss to Clarke’s knuckles.

“I want to.” 

~

“Niylah?”

“Hmmm?”

They’re sitting in the bed, Niylah on top of the blankets, cross legged and reading as Octavia dozes and tries to avoid taking painkillers. It’s not going well.

“I want to wash my hair.”

Niylah’s hand tugs at her days old braid. 

“I’m not sure, O.”

“Ugh, please, I feel like I’m living in filth.” 

It’s quite an operation. Niylah gets a basin from Medbay and fills it with warm water, placing it on a chair next to the bed. There’s a cup, and some soap. 

“Lay with your head over the chair.”

It takes her a second to maneuver herself, but then Niylah’s gentle hand is supporting her neck, and warm water falls over her scalp. 

It takes her a few minutes of luxuriating in the feeling of scrubbing and rinsing for Octavia to realize that she’s crying, because she is. Her cheeks are soaked with it, her lashes clumped together with beads of saltwater. It’s not from pain, it’s not from fear or fever. 

She’s just sad.

Niylah wraps her damp hair in a towel and gets her comfortably propped up again, sliding onto the mattress.

“I know. It’s hard.”

Octavia buries her face in Niylah’s waiting shoulder, wraps her arms tightly around Niylah’s middle, and cries.

~

“Oh, come on. There’s no way, that’s physically impossible.”

Raven is hanging upside down on the end of Clarke’s bed, yelling at Treasure Planet periodically. Luna is cross legged on the floor, leaning up to steal kisses from Raven when her indignation becomes too strong. Bellamy chucks a throw pillow at her with a grin, laughing as it boofs against her forehead and falls to the ground. 

“It’s a fuckin disney movie, Reyes. It’s for kids. Kids don’t care about science.” 

Octavia giggles, snuggling closer to Niylah and resting her head on her shoulder. Under the heavy duvet, Clarke squeezes Octavia’s hand. 

“Well, I care about science. And I’m telling you, that all of this is impossible.”

“You’d hate Star Wars.”

Monty raises an eyebrow at Raven from his perch on the couch, Harper cuddled up in his lap and covered in a throw blanket. 

“For your information, Monty, I love Star Wars.” 

“Yes, you say that, but have you ever seen the prequels?”

Luna and Niylah look just as lost as Octavia feels, which is a comforting reality. It’s nice to not be the only person in the room who’s missing out on the jokes and references. There’s a sense of solidarity to it. 

Pain shoots up Octavia’s spine clear into the base of her skull and she bites down on her lip, hard.

“You alright?”

Niylah has her mouth pressed right against the shell of Octavia’s ear, the question just for her. The rest of their friends are still arguing about Star Wars. Octavia shakes her head.

“Back. Hurts a lot.”

“Would you like to lay down?”

She nods, not trusting herself to speak as another wave of sharp pain crashes over her. She tenses, flinching, squeezing Clarke’s hand out of reflex.

“O?”

“M’fine. Wanna lay down.” 

“Alright. Here, lay against Niylah for a second.”

The pillows she was leaning against are put flat, and then Niylah is easing her down onto them, a hand over her injured vertebrae and one behind her head. Octavia sighs in relief, squirming a bit through the discomfort of pressure releasing in her back. She moves her head so she can lay it on Niylah’s thigh, squishing down the duvet so she can still see the movie being projected onto the wall. 

The plot seems vaguely familiar in a way that makes Octavia’s skin buzz with memories. She lets Niylah stroke her newly clean hair, and drifts off to sleep.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Octavia gets bad news about her healing process

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is pretty heavy on the medical stuff  
> So Octavia has been in a modified spica cast to keep her pelvis immobilized. Her hips and lower back and buttocks and down most of her legs have been in a plaster cast, and her legs have been held in a position conductive to healing with a bar between them
> 
> Octavia also has an EMG and NCS in this chapter. These are both to test nerve function. The NCS involves needles, the EMG involves electrodes and ultrasound gel. Yes, it is as cold as it is in the movies.
> 
> Lastly, towards the end Octavia refers to herself as a "cripple" a few times and displays passive suicidal ideation.

“How’s your pain?”

Octavia grimaces as Abby presses down on her lower back, her hands calloused and cold against Octavia’s bare skin. The hand wrapped in Niylah’s constricts, fingers twitching, nails biting into the top of Niylah’s palm. Niylah tugs the end of her long braid. Abby kneads her fingers into the muscles surrounding damaged bone, and Octavia grits her teeth.

“Octavia?”

“What.”

Her molars are still locked together, so tight she’s giving herself a headache. It’s been like that for the entire month they’ve been in the bunker. The pain in her injured back and pelvis is getting worse instead of better, even as the bones knit. She’s just here to get her hips and pelvis out of the cast immobilizing them, but Abby had watched her move on the cot silently for about 10 minutes before deciding to check her out, “just in case”. 

“How’s your pain been?”

“Fine.”

It’s a snarl, as Abby’s hands move down her spine and towards her tailbone and the burning nerve pain that seems to settle in her hips. Fingers press into the tissue and Octavia nearly jumps off the table with a shrill whine, her head turning away from Abby’s concerned gaze and tears burning the backs of her eyelids. She will not cry. She won’t. She chokes on a strangled sob, thanking every god she’s ever heard of when Abby releases the pressure of her fingers. 

“I take it from the fact that you just tried to fling yourself bodily off my exam table that the pain isn’t great.”

“No shit.” 

It comes out weak and watery. Abby pats between her shoulder blades, and lets Octavia drag herself into a sitting position. Without the spica cast hiding them from view, her newly free legs look thin and pale, webbed with bluish green veins and a dusting of dark hair. She reaches for her pants and Abby holds up a hand.

“Describe it.”

“Describe what?”

“The pain, Octavia.”

She rolls her eyes. Why? There’s no point, talking about it won’t make it go away. She grits her teeth.  
“It hurts.”

“Burning, aching, tingling? Dull? Sharp? A stabbing or throbbing feeling?”

“Burning. Aching. Sometimes throbbing. Not sharp. Can I put on pants and leave now?”

“No. I want to X ray you again. It’s been almost two months, and the pain sounds like nerve pain.” 

The X Rays are normal. Abby comes back over to her bed, her mouth twisted and eyebrows furrowed. Octavia knows that look. It’s the look of immense frustration, a look that means she’s going to have to be very sneaky when crafting her escape. She bangs her head back against the mattress and groans.

“Your X Rays were normal. I thought maybe something slid out of place and was compressing a nerve, but everything is healing nicely.”

“So, can I go now?”

“Octavia-” Abby pinches the bridge of her nose.

“O, we need to make sure nothing is wrong first, hmm?”

“Ok, but Abby just said-”

“X Ray is only one way to see if things are alright. Sit still, hang tight.” 

First, there’s a tube she has to lay in. Abby hands her earplugs and strips her top off, leaving Octavia in a bra and panties. Something about metal in the machine. She is told very clearly and definitely more than once that she cannot move. At all. T

he test lasts for about 20 minutes. She feels minorly claustrophobic, but mostly she’s just bored. The humming and clattering sounds around her make her tired, disoriented, and she shakes her head around like she has water trapped in her ear when she’s finally let out. Niylah helps her sit up and hobble on her shaky newborn sheep legs to the bed where Abby had examined her. 

Then, there are needles in her calves and thighs and behind her knees, a sensor attached to each one. Abby manipulates them after she puts them in, and the monitor makes a strange static sound. Octavia feels her heart speed up in trepidation. This is not going to feel good. 

Octavia bites her lip so hard it bleeds as a thin needle enters her sore back. Abby goes to move it around, like she has with all the others, and she whimpers, a tear rolling down her cheek. The others hurt, but not nearly as much as this one. 

“Three more, Octavia.” 

Abby moves lower, right over the vertebra that had the fracture, and slips the needle in. Octavia makes a strangled sound and flails out with her arms, reaching for Niylah. A warm hand slips into hers. The needle jolts and stutters in her muscle. 

“No, no, nonononono. Please, stop. Please.” 

The needle is removed, and then Abby is stroking her head. Octavia tries to pull away from her, because if she gets away, then this torture is over, but she’s too panicky and too sore to move fast enough. Niylah is still there, a rock in the storm that is Octavia’s nervous system. She whimpers, hoping if she’s pathetic enough, Abby will let her go. 

“I have to do three more, Octavia. Then no more needles, just electrodes and some small shocks.” 

“F-Fuck- Just do it.”

One stabs into her tailbone. She doesn’t cry, doesn’t whimper. Just sits there and lets it happen. Niylah presses a kiss to her head. A needle in her right hip. This hip doesn’t hurt as much or as consistently as her left does, but the needle still stings as it rotates in her flesh. Octavia will never be able to get the sound of her nerves being agitated out of her head. It’s like radio static, but lower, heavier, and she can feel it throbbing in her skull. Abby’s hands are cold as she dabs away blood and wipes a cold blotch of alcohol into Octavia’s left hip, right next to the incision scar from her surgery. Octavia tenses despite herself, trying to relax her corded muscles and failing. 

That last needle, which goes right into the most consistently painful spot in her lower body, has her digging her head back and choking on a dry sob. Abby holds her lower half still and Octavia shakes and trembles at the friction of cold metal against frayed nerve. 

“Almost done, sweetie.”

The machine groans and hisses and beeps in time with the pain shooting through her. She sinks her teeth into her already raw and bloody lip, sniffles back her tears, and doesn’t breathe until it’s out of her. Abby dabs away a spot of blood and Octavia lets herself go limp, taking deep, shuddering breaths. Her nerves still feel agitated, not quite painful but definitely sparking. 

Niylah presses her forehead to Octavia’s cheek, and Octavia keeps taking deep breaths. The warmth of Niylah’s skin tames the fear and panic under her ribs, begging to be let out. She wants to run and hide, or scream and cry until she falls asleep, but she holds it together through electrodes on her skin, shocks through her body, that cold, nasty gel seeping into the hemline of her underwear. Abby sends another pulse through the machine, which clicks menacingly before Octavia feels her thigh spasm. She grunts. It doesn’t hurt, not like the needles, but it doesn’t feel good, either. 

She and Niylah are left alone while Abby goes to look over the results.

“D’ya think I can put pants on now?”

“Yeah, O.”  
She tugs them up her legs. Leggings, not sweatpants. Sweatpants her brother had sewn snaps into so they could get them up over her cast. She wishes Bellamy had been in this appointment. 

“You’ll see him at dinner.”

Niylah crawls onto the bed with her and they sit, shoulder to shoulder, heads pressed together. It feels lopsided without Clarke there too, wrapped around both of them from behind. There’s something building there, something that makes Octavia nervous in good and bad ways. She’s refusing to act on it. 

Her back and hips ache. Badly. The places where the needles were still ping with pain every so often, a deep ache that comes and goes like the waves Luna makes her envision when she can’t get her emotions in check. 

“Octavia?”

“Mm?”

“Let’s lay down.”

“Oh thank god.”

They curl onto their sides, facing each other. Niylah brushes a stray clump of hair back tenderly, her fingers lingering on the shell of Octavia’s ear. 

“Sweetie? I have the results.”

“Shoot.”

“Well, there’s no nerve damage. There’s no sign of why this pain is still lingering. I think that, if it persists when you get some strength back and rebuild muscle, it’s probably fibromyalgia.”

“English, Abby.”

“It’s a nerve disorder. Overactive nerves. Bad injuries like this can trigger an onset of symptoms. Have you been feeling foggy and fatigued lately?”

“Yes.”

“Headaches?”

“Yes, but that could just be from the lights-”  
“Octavia, these are all symptoms. It’s most likely fibromyalgia.”

“Well can you fix it?” 

“We can treat it.”

“But you can’t make it go away.”

“Not entirely. There are treatments, medications, therapies, but no cure. It’s a maybe still, right now. If it persists for 12 weeks starting today, it’s definitely fibro, but right now there’s still hope it’s just from muscle atrophy. Either way, we can keep you comfortable enough that you’ll still be able to do most things.” 

There’s something in her eye. There must be. That’s why she’s tearing up, that’s why she can’t see. She’s not crying over this. She won’t. She will not cry because her body is weak, maybe permanently, maybe forever, she will not cry she will not cry. She jerks up, scrambles off the bed and uses the wall to catch herself when her weak legs go to jelly underneath her. 

“Use the crutches, Octavia.”

“What do you mean most things?”

“Well, you might have some trouble sparring because of the pain, and your energy levels will likely never catch up to where they were before your accident.”

“It wasn’t an ACCIDENT, Abby.”

“It’s just a phrase, Octavia. With patience and work, you’ll be able to function on a normal level. It might just mean you have to be more patient and accepting of your limitations in the future.”

“So I’m going to be useless.”

“That’s not what I said-”

“I HEARD what you said. Limitations? Patience? Abby, I fight. I am a soldier. That is all I’m good at. You can’t exactly be understanding of your limitations when someone is literally trying to kill you.”

She can barely see through the haze of tears over her retinas as she snatches up the forearm crutches and leans on them heavily, beginning to pace, the metal wrapped around her arms doing most of the work.

“Am I gonna need these forever? Is all of this forever? Am I going to be a fucking cripple forever? Abby-”

“No. The crutches are just until you build some muscle up and aren’t a fall risk. You’re not crippled, you’re just going to have new limits. It’s going to be alright, Octavia. These things have a way of working themselves out.”

Octavia whirls, stumbling, the rubber tip of the left crutch skidding across the floor. It takes her a second to get her bearings, drag her throbbing legs back underneath her and stop white knuckling the grips of the crutches. She can feel more tears starting, her stomach in knots and her heart throbbing in her chest, a rhythmic beat like the gallop of a horse. She needs to run, to hide, the pressure and the walls of the bunker pressing in on her body as she tries to process what Abby is telling her. Useless. She’s going to be useless. A waste of space, a waste of time and resources and a waste of Clarke and Niylah’s attentions.

She should have succeeded when she slit her wrist that night. She should have made them leave her behind to burn up and die. She should have been dead by now. 

“And when have things ever worked themselves out for me?”


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> New challenges appear on the horizon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back!!! If you follow me on Tumblr, you probably know that I've had a lot of health problems over the past few months, that, combined with RL responsibilities like work and school, have made it pretty hard to do much more than work on prompts. Hit me up over there at reysxrose for more content.

Octavia doesn’t come to mealtime. Niylah had let Clarke and Bellamy know that Abby’s news had been bad, and that Octavia had stormed out. Between the three of them, they’d decided to let her blow off steam and stew for a little while. None of them had expected her to miss dinner, but the seat between Niylah and Clarke where she normally perches remains empty. 

“Hey, where’s little Blake?”

Miller spoons the daily mush into his mouth, barely looking up from his tray. Clarke has it on good authority that Bellamy and Indra had the guardsmen and cadets running sprints for over an hour as punishment for some sort of horseshit they pulled, and the guy must be starving to be eating their bland protein rations as enthusiastically as he is. Clarke runs her fingers through her hair, focusing in on Octavia’s empty place to her left. Niylah bites her fingernails nervously, the hand not holding her spoon resting on the metal seat. She hasn’t touched her food, nor has Bellamy. Clarke reaches for Niylah’s hand, tugging it away from her mouth and pressing it into the cool metal of the cafeteria table. 

“Stop.” 

Niylah looks at her, expression almost angry to shield the fear lingering in her eyes. Clarke turns her head to the door, staring at it like sheer force of will can make Octavia appear. Niylah begins to bite at the nails on her other hand. Bellamy shoves his tray away. 

“We need to find her.”

“It’s not like she can really go anywhere, Bellamy,” Raven mumbles, stabbing at limp veggies with her fork. 

“That’s exactly why I’m worried, Raven-”

“She’s probably just moping, I would be-”

“Ok but did you forget she tried to kill herself-”

“GUYS.”

Monty bangs his plastic water glass down on the table, rolling his eyes. Bellamy and Raven cringe, looking slightly guilty, avoiding each other’s eyes as the table falls silent. Miller stops eating, and Harper puts her hand on Monty’s arm. Niylah keeps worrying at a hangnail on her pinky finger, and Clarke doesn’t pull her eyes away from the door. 

“Why don’t we just go look for her? Like Raven said, there’s a limited number of places she could have even gone. Between all of us, we could probably search the whole bunker in under an hour.”  
“Someone should probably tell Kane and Abby.” 

“I’ll do that,” Raven says, shoving herself to standing with a strained grunt and a swat at Bellamy as he tries to help her, “My hip is bothering me, and there’s a lot of stairs in this motherfucker. I’ll update Luna, too. If Octavia is really upset, her hypnotics might be needed.” 

They all know that Octavia is really upset. She’s been teetering on the brink of a full scale mental breakdown since the doors closed, never really tipping over the edge but swaying towards it. The news that she may be permanently injured from her fall might finally be the push that sends her over the edge. Fitting, Niylah thinks, that her fall may be what causes her to tumble down again. She pushes back her chair, extends a hand to Clarke. Clarke takes it, sending shifty eyes around the cafeteria. 

Bellamy understands the shifty eyes. For a year they were hunted, and disappearance meant death. His sister is missing, and even though it’s harder to get yourself killed when you’re in a concrete cube hiding from the end of the world, it’s still possible. Leave it to Octavia to wander off and find a way. 

They split up, Bellamy, Monty, and Harper heading up and Clarke, Niylah, and Miller heading down. Niylah is still biting her nails, and Clarke watches as she bites too high up, blood bubbling from where the nail has been torn away from the quick. Niylah curses, tugging her hand out of her mouth as they head through the boiler room and towards the hydrofarm. 

“I told you to stop doing that.”

Niylah doesn’t say anything. It’s tense, and Clarke can’t help but wonder what they’re going to find. The scar on Octavia’s left wrist is still red and angry, the marks from the sutures still visible on her skin. She cries in her sleep most nights, or when she’s awake and thinks Clarke and Niylah are asleep. Clarke knows better than to attribute it to the pain she’s in. 

The door to the hydrofarm is ajar, and Clarke takes a tentative step in first, eyes scanning. No Octavia, not yet, but the room is big and towers of plants obscure her vision. She strides forward, not looking back to see if Miller and Niylah follow her. There’s a faint rustling and a sniffle as she approaches the back left corner of the room, and she comes around a terrace to see Octavia. 

“I found her!” 

Octavia is curled in a tiny ball on her side, face buried in her knees and back shaking. Clarke isn’t entirely sure she’s awake and crouches down, running her palm down Octavia’s spine. The girl flinches away from her touch and makes her ball tighter, a whimper escaping her. Her breathing speeds up, and Clarke reaches to touch her again, an attempt to soothe her. 

“Octavia, it’s okay.”

“I-it’s no-not.”

Clarke sits down, cross legged against the wall next to Octavia’s head, as Miller and Niylah round the corner. Miller looks instantly uncomfortable, staring at Octavia. 

“I’ll go find Bellamy. Tell him we found her.” 

Clarke nods, beckoning Niylah forward to sit with them. They don’t speak or move until they’re sure Miller is gone, something inside them both suggesting that this is a private moment between the three of them. The door closes with a soft click, and then Niylah is reaching across Clarke to take one of Octavia’s trembling hands away from her face. Octavia tries to hide behind her hair, but Clarke can see the tear marks, the tangled eyelashes, the red puffy eyelids. She hums tunelessly, letting Niylah massage Octavia’s palm in her lap. 

Gradually Octavia uncurls, the crying and the stress taking its toll and sending her into a restless sleep. They stay there, on the floor, sticky and humid with the climate control of the farm. Octavia’s head drifts its way into Clarke’s lap, the hand Niylah was massaging still clinging to Niylah. 

“Poor girl,” Niylah murmurs, her head on Clarke’s shoulder as they wait for Octavia to wake up. Clarke nods, smoothing Octavia’s dark hair away from her blotchy face. Life on the ground has been nothing but hard on Octavia, and what does she get from it? The possibility of a lifetime of pain. Just like Raven. It isn’t fair. Clarke thumbs the bridge of Octavia’s nose, shaking her shoulder gently. She’s starting to cramp on the floor, and Niylah looks equally uncomfortable. 

“Wake up, O.”

Octavia blinks her eyes open, the lids swollen and crusted with dried salt tears. Her mouth wobbles and her eyes well again, but she lets Clarke and Niylah help her to her feet and then limps between them, clutching to Clarke’s arm to keep her balance. She hides her face from them, keeping it down towards the floor. Niylah rubs her back.

The common area near their bedroom is full of their friends, and Octavia balks at the doorway, turning her face into Niylah’s shoulder. 

“Come on, O.” 

Octavia stumbles through the crowd with Niylah, Clarke waiting in common space until their bedroom door closes. She holds a hand up, daring them all to speak. The couches are crammed full of old delinquents, Monty and Harper, Raven and Luna, Murphy and Emori. Nate and Bellamy stand, edging closer to the bedroom door as if they can protect Octavia from the outside. 

“She’s okay. She’s upset, and she’s exhausted, but she’s still in one piece. We need to give her space- I know she wants Niylah around, but it’s questionable about everyone else. Once I know how she is tomorrow I’ll let everyone know, but for tonight, just leave her to us. Bellamy?”

She tugs him off to the side as people filter out of the common space, Raven and Luna disappearing into their room and everyone else headed god knows where. Bellamy is tense and jumpy, his head darting towards the bedroom door.

“I want to see how she reacts to you. She’s basically catatonic, she said about two words to me when I first found her and nothing since. Be quiet and calm, though. Don’t let her see that you’re worried or upset.”

She puts a hand on his shoulder and squeezes. He nods, inhaling sharply and running a hand through his hair. The bedroom door creaks open and reveals Niylah and Octavia on the couch, Octavia curled into a ball in Niylah’s lap. She’s awake but only just, and she perks up slightly when she sees her big brother. 

“Hey, baby sister.” 

Octavia blinks tiredly, extending a hand towards Bellamy. Niylah goes to leave and Octavia curls in on herself again, white knuckling Niylah’s shirt. 

“Stay.”

“Alright. I’m here.”

“Where’s Clarke?”

It’s the most she’s said since they found her. Clarke comes to perch on the arm of the couch, and Octavia relaxes enough to grab her brother’s hand.

“I-I-”

Bellamy sits crosslegged on the floor, still holding Octavia’s hand. 

“You don’t have to talk if you don’t want to, Octavia.” 

She shakes her head, her dark hair flying. Bellamy kisses the back of her hand. 

“I want- will you stay? All of you?”

“Of course, O.”

They wait until she falls asleep to move around, Bellamy stepping out while they get her ready for bed, soft and pliant in her exhaustion. He carries her to the bed, tucking her in. Clarke can see him, ten or so, tucking baby Octavia into a cot on the Ark, or into a space under the floor. She smiles, pressing a kiss to the corner of Niylah’s mouth for the briefest second before they both slip under the sheets on either side of Octavia. Bellamy settles on the couch, sending Clarke a cocky, half real salute before turning the lamp off. 

She knows Niylah isn’t asleep on the other side of Octavia’s sleeping body, and Bellamy is breathing softly, definitely out like a light. She reaches for her, draping their clasped hands over Octavia’s stomach so they can feel her breath. 

“I know you’re awake, Niylah,” she whispers, careful not to wake either Blake sibling. Niylah squeezes her hand in return.

“I don’t like this.”

“Don’t like what?”

“The way this affected her. She’s erratic, again. So soon after-”

Niylah cuts off with a soft gasp, snuggling a little closer to Octavia’s side and tugging her dark head to rest on her chest. Octavia sighs in her sleep, fussing a little, getting closer to Niylah’s warmth. 

“She’s safe. She has all of us. She has to be okay, Niylah, I don’t know-”

She stops. She doesn’t want to cross that line, not with Octavia so vulnerable. She won’t. They can’t, not yet. 

Octavia wakes up screaming in the middle of the night, thrashing against the sheets and kneeing Clarke in the kidney so hard she loses her ability to breathe for a few seconds. It takes hours to calm her down, even with Bellamy in the room, a veritable pro at taking care of her. She sobs in the shower, warm water bearing down on her sweaty back, Niylah cradling her in the tub as Clarke sits on the toilet and Bellamy reads to her from outside the door. She finally runs out of steam in her brother’s arms, three hours after the nightmare had woken her. Clarke swallows hard on the tears in her throat, helps Bellamy get Octavia tucked back into the bed, and sits against the headboard, too tense to lay down.

She doesn’t get any more sleep that night.

**Author's Note:**

> Credits to dreamsheartstory for the ships and the concept and the permission to abuse them thus. come yell at me on Tumblr @reysxrose


End file.
